tonight i'm loving you
by lalaclairi
Summary: He's held Tori many times and stopped her crying but that doesn't mean anything in her world, does it? - Onesided ToriAndre.


He's sixteen, so whenever he sees her and his breath catches in his throat and his heart, like, stops beating and all that mushy stuff, he assumes it's nothing. He's known around Hollywood Arts for being the calm, level-headed, semi-normal one out of his group of friends, so he brushes these feelings [feelings he's never had before, dreamed about having] off since he's sixteen and too young to feel this way.

But she's beautiful, glittery [the word only exists for her], loyal-gosh, there's so many words he could use to describe her-Tori Vega. She believes in fairy tales and prince charmings and guardian angels and magic and _true love _and happy endings - so when he asks her if she thinks they're too young to fall in love she smiles and says, "Age is just a number, Andre."

Her musical laughter floats throughout the air.

[she makes him believe in magic.]

.

He's going to freaking kill him.

Whom, exactly?

Beck Oliver.

He knows Tori is kind of in the wrong, since he _is _Jade's boyfriend, but it's still not okay for him to lead Tori on and break her heart and make her cry and God, Tori Vega isn't supposed to be sad and broken...she's not supposed to sound bitter and just so _mad _like she does now. It should be illegal for Tori Vega not to have a huge smile on her face.

He pulls her closer to him and in response she grabs on tighter to his t-shirt; he's not sure how much time has passed since she turned up on his doorstep, eyes red and puffy- all she had to cry out was "_Beck_" for him to decide he was going to kill Beck when he was done comforting Tori.

"I-I know y-you're mind at Beck," she chokes out, "but...but don't go over to his RV and punch him or something like that. I know you're thinking about it."

At his embarrassed face, she laughs weakly, breaking out of his embrace. "How do you always know what I'm thinking, Vega?" He asks, raising an eyebrow at her.

"I know you. And you know me, Harris."

.

"Let's go to the beach!" A familiar, excited voice shouts, making him jump a little. Just like that, he lost the medley he had been thinking of and the lyrics for the last verse of the song he was writing flew out of his mind. Oh, well. It wasn't that good, anyway, he tries to tell himself, because he just can't be mad at this girl.

Tori's wearing a white tank-top that says _L.A. Baby _across the chest and he blushes when he realizes he can see her bikini top through her shirt and the jean shorts she's wearing...well, he's afraid of what would happen if she bended over.

"But, I was working on this song..."

She pouts at him, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Okay," he says finally. Stupid puppy dog face.

He doesn't even know where they're going, just listens to the directions that Tori shouts at him. They get weird looks but neither of them really care.

Tori has to shout in the first place because she turns up the radio to its full volume and it'd be impossible to hear her speaking in a normal tone of voice over it.

She tells him to pull over after an hour, and he realizes with a shock that they're not even at a beach. "I thought you wanted to go to the beach."

"I couldn't remember where we were going." She shrugs, before turning away from him to face the lake. It's not blue, like it should be, it's some kind of yellow color and there's soda cans littered around and in it. Surely she's not crazy enough to swim in this. She's about to turn around and hop back in the car, he tells himself.

She's crazy enough.

She takes off her tank-top and throws it over to him; then, she kicks off her flip-flops and of course, gives them to him, too. He's pretty sure his heart stops beating when she takes off her jean shorts-her bikini bottom-if you can even call it that-looks like something out of Victoria's Secret. It's all pink and frilly and barely there...Oh God.

"Tori! What is that?"

"What do ya mean?" She asks innocently, flipping her hair over her shoulder as she walked towards the lake.

"That!" His waved his hands around crazily, trying to express how shocked he felt.

"Aw, c'mon, dude! Don't be such a prude! I'm only gonna swim for a few minutes and then we can head back home...and I'll print out some directions for next time I wanna go to the beach."

She dives into the water, splashing him and all of her stuff he was holding.

"Sorry, Andre!" He can faintly hear; he shudders at the thought of swimming in the dirty-looking lake, much less going underwater, so your face could get all...dirty. And everything.

She pops back out, splashing him again. "Sorry!" She says again, but he knows she doesn't really mean it because she starts into a laughing fit right after she says it.

After a few more minutes, she comes out of the lake, and it's like that one Baywatch fantasy he has.

She runs over to him, her eyes sparkling. "Andre, I have an idea! We have to get the group together for this one."

He rolls his eyes.

.

"So, me and Andre went to this lake, and it had a lot of trash and soda cans and cereal boxes...you know, it was trashed-"

"Get to the point, Princess," Jade interrupts. Beck puts a hand on her arm, but she shoves it off. Ever since whatever happened with Tori, it was obvious Beck was on thin ice. Even he couldn't really calm down Jade anymore. "I'm only here because Beck and Cat made me - wait, you know what? I'm leaving."

"Jade..." Cat started, leaping out of her seat.

"Leave me alone!"

And with a slam of the door, Jade was gone. Tori's smile fell and for a moment she looked utterly exhausted, but Tori quickly returned the smile to her face.

"I think it would be really pretty if we cleaned it up...you know, all of us...Beck, Cat, Robbie, Andre, Trina, if I can talk her into it...so! What do you guys think?"

"I like it," Beck said. He ran a hand through his hair and Tori's smile got even wider. Andre couldn't help making fists.

"I'm in," he managed through clenched teeth. Tori must have not noticed his tone or just ignored it. Whatever. This was just some silly high school crush.

"Well if everyone else is..." Robbie trailed off, looking defeated. Tori squealed.

"Cat, your the only one who hasn't agreed yet!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Robbie rolled his eyes at Cat's catchphrase. Or cat-phrase...hmm, he'll have to tell Tori about his idea.

"Okay, so everyone's gonna help out! Awesome," Tori squealed even louder, jumping a little. As she started to go off about teams, days they could go and clean, getting attention from news stations, Andre leaned over to whisper in Beck's ear, "How come you're not going after Jade?"

"I'm not sure I'm what she wants anymore." Beck was looking at the floor.

"Tori really messed up our lives, huh?" He says after a while. No one's really paying attention to Tori anymore.

"All it took was one improv class. One."

Andre's not sure what that means.

And he's not sure he wants to know.

.

The project is a success.

Tori [she really is amazing] manages to get a couple of news stations to cover it and they're in the newspaper and he slips his demo into a reporter's pocket; he's not sure what a news reporter could do to get his name out there, but lately he's been trying to take on a Tori view of the world.

The lake water still looks disgusting, and he still wouldn't step foot in it, but the area around the lake looks great and there's already a lot of families and couples having picnics by it.

"I'm so proud of you," he mumbles into her ear, one afternoon when they're standing by the lake, admiring their work. His arm is around her waist and she's leaning in to him and they're all alone - the only sound is a few crickets and this is the moment, this is the-

Her phone rings and it feels like his heart drops to the pit of his stomach when he sees the name "_Beck_" and when she notices his gaze, she turns away from him and reads the text. He can hear her gasp and then she's saying they have to go now, now, now, tonight's the night, Beck told me he's breaking up with Jade [and the only thing he can think is _liar. _because two years doesn't go away like that. when will tori stop being such a fool?

he doesn't know this dark side of him that says mean things about tori and beck and his heart is breaking but this is just a silly high school crush he's sixteen, almost seventeen he doesn't know what love is, he doesn't know...he doesn't-oh, he knows. he knows.]

.

[she was right. age doesn't matter, because as much as he tried to deny it, when he saw her that day he fell in love, no doubt about it. he's fallen and he can't get up-

no...no. he'll never be able to get back up.]

.

Jade slaps Tori.

There's a loud _smack _noise and it sounds so, so loud and oh, it hurts, it hurts him and he knows it hurts Tori and he just wants to rescue her, pull Jade away and take Tori away, be her prince, but his mother didn't raise a fool. He knows Tori is _the other woman. _He knows she deserves it. But...he just loves her so much.

And then, it's all a blur - Tori runs away crying and Beck reaches out for Jade and she screeches, "don't ever talk to me again!" and then she's gone, too, and the student body of Hollywood Arts sees something they never thought they would see - Beck Oliver _alone, defeated, heartbroken._

They couldn't think of Tori Vega like that, either, and Jade West was even harder to imagine being those three words. But they were all defeated. And the whole school had been given a free ticket to see their breakdowns.

.

[honestly? you know it would end this way. that beck would end up alone and so would you and so would tori and so would jade because none of you were ever meant to be together.]

.

If this were a movie, he would go after Tori and comfort her and then they would kiss and happy music would play and then it would show him and Tori making out and Beck & Jade doing the same and you would all be friends again and Robbie, Cat, and Trina would be doing something wacky and funny-

But this isn't a movie and he's held Tori, stopped her crying plenty of times and she's always left him for Beck and he doesn't her to fall for him because she's sad and lonely so he stays away from her, stays far away and writes dark love songs and remembers happier days and looks at old pictures and remembers watching her swim in that dirty lake - he laughs at the memory - in her skimpy bikini and her magical laughter and Beck running his hands through his hair and Jade's sarcastic comments, Trina's selfishness and Robbie's awkwardness, Cat's randomness.

.

[_i hurt_.]


End file.
